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The AFL can't seem to help itself tinkering with the Laws of the game. Sometimes it's called for, often it's not.
They have established a rules committee or rules officer and related functions that manage umpires. That's fine but when you established a position or a body to oversee the rules they often feel they have to justify their existence so they come up with all sorts of unnecessary or contrived claptrap. To make it worse there is often little consultation and the AFL even seems to have done away with foreshadowing a rule change for the following season. They just implement it straight off. There's no "we'll trial it in the practice games and see how it goes".
It's made worse when they implement the new rules heavy-handedly in the first few weeks (like the umpire dissent rule) then like magic the level of enforcement changes, sometimes to the point that the rule doesn't exist any more (again, like the umpire dissent rule). The umpires are a victim of this impulsive behaviour too. They probably hear about a new rule not long before we do. We only have to watch it. They have to somehow interpret it and make sense of it without destroying the spectacle of the game. And when they have just about got the hang of it the AFL taps them on the shoulder and says "hey, go easy on that rule fellas, it's not working out too well". I'm surprised Brad Scott hasn't got a whistle shoved up his clacker. (actually, now that I think about it ...
)
Players and coaches too are mightily confused a lot of the time. Players have to adapt. Coaches do too, but they are usually a lot smarter than the AFL so they fairly smartly come up with workarounds and counter-measures that either neutralise the effect of the rule or create yet more problems for the AFL. And so the AFL gets to work devising yet more rule changes. And so the whole circus continues to roll on.
Sometimes less is more. Quite often in fact, especially where it applies to the AFL.
I thought we spend enough time whingeing about the AFL rule changes that it might as well have its own thread that we can fill up with tears, vitriol and spittle.
They have established a rules committee or rules officer and related functions that manage umpires. That's fine but when you established a position or a body to oversee the rules they often feel they have to justify their existence so they come up with all sorts of unnecessary or contrived claptrap. To make it worse there is often little consultation and the AFL even seems to have done away with foreshadowing a rule change for the following season. They just implement it straight off. There's no "we'll trial it in the practice games and see how it goes".
It's made worse when they implement the new rules heavy-handedly in the first few weeks (like the umpire dissent rule) then like magic the level of enforcement changes, sometimes to the point that the rule doesn't exist any more (again, like the umpire dissent rule). The umpires are a victim of this impulsive behaviour too. They probably hear about a new rule not long before we do. We only have to watch it. They have to somehow interpret it and make sense of it without destroying the spectacle of the game. And when they have just about got the hang of it the AFL taps them on the shoulder and says "hey, go easy on that rule fellas, it's not working out too well". I'm surprised Brad Scott hasn't got a whistle shoved up his clacker. (actually, now that I think about it ...
)Players and coaches too are mightily confused a lot of the time. Players have to adapt. Coaches do too, but they are usually a lot smarter than the AFL so they fairly smartly come up with workarounds and counter-measures that either neutralise the effect of the rule or create yet more problems for the AFL. And so the AFL gets to work devising yet more rule changes. And so the whole circus continues to roll on.
Sometimes less is more. Quite often in fact, especially where it applies to the AFL.
I thought we spend enough time whingeing about the AFL rule changes that it might as well have its own thread that we can fill up with tears, vitriol and spittle.
